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Los Angeles - South Central - Helping At-Risk Teens Put On Their Own Musical Working with teens in high-crime neighborhoods of Los Angeles and a non-profit theater, Alex helped them create an original musical which was later performed in front of an audience at the Disney-owned Red Cat Theater in Hollywood, California, in the summer of 2011. The theme which the kids unanimously chose for their staged production was bullying. On opening night. . . . . .the audience found themselves surrounded by darkness as the children's whispers began to fill the halls. The whispers seemed to come from everywhere, emerging from hidden speakers he had instructed the sound engineers of the theater to position behind the audience, some were even under seats in the house and others placed at strategic, shadowy corners of the theater.

A near-symphony of whispers BUILDS to a crescendo.... and then!.. ( flashback ) Two months earlier, during rehearsals, Alex met each child in preparation, asking the same question of each: "What is the worst thing you have ever been called?" He went around with a recorder and asked them to say a word into the microphone. Once or twice, a child would go as far as to imitate the voice of the bully who had once taunted him or her... and the process of turning their past suffering into the creation of something was, for several, a cathartic act. These were the same whispers the audience heard two months later in Hollywood, which filled the air in the great hall of the Disney Roy-Edna Red Cat Theater with electricity on opening night.

"Change the World, 101"

Anthropologists theorize that music might be the key. Some of them believe music might even be something developed out of evolutionary necessity as our numbers grew greater and greater. There had to be some way to motivate, to rally, to organize and bring peace and even a sort-of instant understanding, empathy and sharing of experience between humans.

These were some of Alex Sharp Cole's influences when he taught and created his university course for The California Institute of the Arts (CALARTS) called How to Start a Cultural Revolution in Your Home Town (the Conscious Creation of Context). It drew enrollment among college students enrolled in art, music, theater and theoretical disciplines. His students came from around the world. If anyone could go back home after the course was through and begin to sew seeds of non-violent revolution of the mind it would be these art students. There were even students on the roster who hailed from places on the planet where types of artistic expression is punished if it is disliked by the dominating regime.

Spreading music and art, wherever he goes, Alex Sharp Cole makes a point of convincing everyone he meets to follow their dreams... no matter how hard it may seem, sometimes... Not only is it a good way to keep the light in your eyes alive -- and to keep from shutting yourself off completely, becoming bitter and callous -- not only, he says, is following one's true calling good for the individual -- it is, he says, the social and moral duty of every man, woman and child alive to make use of the gifts that this life has given them... and to share that with their fellow man and woman. This is because we are free, and we are alive.

Alex Sharp Cole : Sing if you are alive -- and sing loud. Resist the silence. Find the song that's inside you. It's never too late to be true to the voice you hear calling. And if you've done it already, start traveling, talking, open peoples minds, spread the music, and one day -- as important as I do believe the human quest for knowledge, technology and science is to our natural destiny, it remains that no feat of engineering alone will ever stop people from fighting, no scientific discovery will ever keep two countries from starting a nuclear war. For that, one day, we will need a feeling of collective, human, solidarity, shared understanding. For that we will need to create a community of free agent movers, for that we will need some way... some way to spread the feeling and some way to trigger the Next Renaissance. A New Enlightenment. . .

That is the reason I believe, one day. . . music will save the world.

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Artistic Practice (a few notes for art theory people) By taking his artistic practice outside the relatively "safe" contextual environment of the art gallery or theater, Alex Sharp Cole is able to reach new audiences outside the traditional arts community. One example of this was his site-specific, performance-art piece "Cult" (2010), which he staged in a Los Angeles suburb. In this piece, the "audience" of onlookers on the street of whoever happened to be passing by became unsure of whether or not the performance was real. Much more could be said about this particular piece but, more in general, there is an acknowledgment of realistic ambiguity at the heart of Alex Sharp Cole's performance practice, which reflects his longstanding interest in "the reality of performance" -- looking into questions like: What is performance? Is anything performed? Isn't everything real, insofar as we are real humans, performing real actions in the real world? Isn't there, in physical terms, no real difference between the space that exists onstage or the space inside of any prestigious art museum and the space we live in outside of these contextual institutions?

Making Music for Refugees & the Kids in Sweden Without ParentsThe city of Mölndal, Sweden, asked Alex to create a music program at their teenage refugee home on the countryside. He built them a makeshift rehearsal studio out of a spare room that was being used for storage, taught electric guitar to some very eager and interested young people... and hosted summer concerts here, which helped to draw visitors from the local community. * * *Artistic Research Published at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, Alex Sharp Cole has written about the modern mystery of human creativity --exploring mehtods of what it actually takes to trigger creative inspiration. He intends his thesis to be used by both experts and non-experts alike as a kind of "guidebook." For those, curious, it could offer a gateway into their own mind's deepest, hidden creative potential.

Improvising Music Alex Sharp Cole is occasionally working as a creative coach for established songwriters and improvising compositions in front of audiences at the theatre, GBG Impro in Gothenburg, Sweden.

*See IMDB page for further work / credits working for instance as a composer for film, theater and as a songwriter, sound designer. playwright and producer -- and for his own record label, Personal Recordings of Sweden, which works to help defend the rights of the artists, unseen -- and the songs, seldom played.

A "thank you" to my mentors over the years . . . the following artists, filmmakers and political activists gave me their time, personal help and criticism, which guided me in the development of my artistic process.